Cashiers Valley Leaf Festival is Oct. 5-7

The Cashiers Valley Leaf Festival will include everything from concerts to crafts during its three-day run Oct. 5-7.

The Lovin’ Spoonful will appear “On the Slope” in Sapphire on Oct. 5. Gates open at 5 p.m. General admission is $25 and VIP tickets are $50.

Glenville Village, about five miles north of the Cashiers Crossroads on Lake Glenville, will have crafters and artists ranging from potters to woodworkers. Also, beginning at 10 a.m. each day Signal Ridge Marina launches pontoon boat cruises to view Lake Glenville’s wooded shoreline and hear a bit of lake lore.

Moving east from the Cashiers Crossroads on N.C. 64, attendees will find a variety of shops and eateries at Sapphire Village.

Reading Room

Like some other readers I know, my taste in books these last 20 years or so has shifted from fiction to non-fiction, especially history, biography, and literary studies. I still follow certain novelists — Anne Tyler, Pat Conroy, James Lee Burke, and others — and still review novels for this paper, but find that works of fiction simply don’t appeal as much as when I was in my twenties and thirties, when I read stacks of novels and poetry.